Closing summary
Thank you for joining us on the blog – here is a wrap of the day’s headlines:
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has responded to China’s foreign ministry accusing an Australian navy helicopter of deliberately flying “within close range” of Chinese airspace in a “provocative move” in the latest military altercation between the two nations.
Half of the threatened plant and animal species in New South Wales are on course to be extinct within a century, according to a new report released by the Minns government, which finds the decline of the state’s environment has accelerated.
Debra and Martin Robinson are preparing to bring home the remains of their sons Callum, 33, and Jake, 30, to “the ocean waves of Australia” after travelling to Mexico to confirm the identities of their bodies.
Greens senator and foreign affairs spokesperson, Jordon Steele-John, says Australia should not abstain or delay voting to recognise Palestinian statehood, and “just vote yes”.
Victorian treasurer, Tim Pallas, has called the inequality between generations a “national tragedy” and requires urgent action.
The decision to ban books on same-sex parenting from local libraries has placed one western Sydney council’s funding under threat, AAP reports, as the NSW government investigates the action.
The federal court has confirmed that Elon Musk’s X will be represented by the high-profile Australian barrister Bret Walker SC in the company’s legal battle against the eSafety commissioner over the removal of 65 tweets containing video of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at his Wakeley church.
The number of tourists on K’gari national park could soon be capped on the busiest days of the year, amid a wave of dingo attacks.
Save the Children Australia is today launching an appeal in the federal court in Melbourne, seeking to compel the government to repatriate a group of Australian children and their mothers from north-east Syria.
The former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will become an international ambassador for the Smart Energy Council, the Courier Mail is reporting.
Updated
China spin on warplane flare-up rejected by Australia
Australia has rejected China’s account of an incident between a Chinese warplane and a Royal Australian Navy helicopter, with the prime minister saying there was “no question” defence personnel were in the right.
The helicopter was forced to take evasive action after a Chinese air force plane launched flares closely ahead of it over the Yellow Sea on Saturday.
Australia and the US have branded the incident as unsafe and unprofessional, with Canberra raising its objections through diplomatic channels.
China dismissed the concerns, with foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, asserting “the Australian military aircraft flew near China airspace in a threatening way”.
The flares were a warning to the Australians, he said.
Albanese said Beijing’s explanation wasn’t satisfactory. He told reporters in Perth on Wednesday:
There’s no question that the Australian Defence Force personnel were both in international waters and in international airspace.
Albanese said Australia conveyed its concerns to China’s ambassador.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director, Justin Bassi, said without unconditional condemnation, this kind of behaviour would be incentivised:
While shouting rarely gets you anywhere, the idea that our response needs to be tempered so as not to upset Beijing into giving us the silent treatment or some other form of punishment unfortunately already means that their coercion against us is working.
- Australian Associated Press
Updated
Local shares creep higher, winning streak hits five
The domestic stock market has extended its winning streak to five days with shares finishing marginally higher as traders continued to digest Tuesday’s Reserve Bank messaging on interest rates.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index today rose 11.2 points, or 0.14%, to 7,804.5, while the broader All Ordinaries was also up 11.2 points to 8,076.7.
The Australian dollar was buying 65.79 US cents, from 65.91 at Tuesday’s ASX close.
- Australian Associated Press
Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, has said the alleged stabbing of a 39-year-old woman in Alexandria, Sydney, is “horrific news”.
“Violence against women is a national crisis.”
Horrific news out of Alexandria this afternoon. Violence against women is a national crisis.
— Tanya Plibersek (@tanya_plibersek) May 8, 2024
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
International students will soon need close to $30,000 in savings to get a visa to study in Australia
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil announced that from Friday, international students must show proof of savings worth $29,710.
Last year, the government increased the threshold from $21,041 to $24,505.
The move follows a crackdown on dodgy education providers and efforts to lower Australia’s migration levels.
O’Neil said her department had sent the first tranche of warning letters to 34 education providers for “non-genuine or exploitative recruitment practices”.
They have been given six months to improve their behaviour or risk being issued with suspensions from recruiting further students.
English language requirements for students from overseas have also been strengthened.
O’Neil said the measures would help weed out the “bottom feeders” in the international education sector:
The migration system we inherited was completely broken, and our goal is to build a smaller, better planned, more strategic migration system that works for Australia.
We are significantly reducing migration levels – we are in the middle of the biggest drop in migration numbers in Australia’s history, outside of war or pandemic.
- Australian Associated Press
Accountants warn of lax regulation in industry
A peak accountant body says shoddy operators have flooded the industry, as the government looks to tighten regulation of consulting and accounting industries.
Andrew Conway, CEO of the Institute of Public Accountants, said the industry was suffering “people who are masquerading as professionals” because the term accountant isn’t tightly defined. He told a parliamentary inquiry:
There’s a large number of people who call themselves accountants that are not members of one of the three [representative] bodies
Our members who do the right thing … have had a gutful of the brand damage to them as individuals, as practitioners, to our profession.
The loose definition of “accountant” has meant lawyers, consultants and other non-specialists can provide audit and accounting services, IPA group executive Vicki Stylianou said.
The government is considering new regulations for accounting, auditing, consulting and tax advice in response to last year’s PWC tax leaks scandal. Treasury discussion papers released on Friday floated a cap on the number of high-paid partner positions a company can have, something the IPA endorsed.
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Labor councillor stands by vote to ban same-sex parenting books in Sydney council libraries
Labor councillor Mohamad Hussein who voted in favour of banning same-sex parenting books from Cumberland libraries has said:
I stand by my decision … It was not targeted at anyone or groups.
This decision was made in line with my religious beliefs and I will not be comprising those beliefs.
The statement comes after Labor MPs condemned his decision – which you can read about here.
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The 39-year-old woman allegedly stabbed in Alexandria, Sydney, sustained multiple wounds to the neck and back of the neck, NSW Ambulance have said.
She was taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a stable condition.
Here are the parents of brothers Callum and Jake Robinson speaking after the Australian surfers were allegedly murdered while on a trip in Mexico:
Central and eastern parts of the country can expect rain for the rest of the week, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning of a wet weekend for eastern parts of NSW:
National Weather Update 8 May 2024: Rain for central and eastern parts of Australia. Video current as of 2pm AEST, Wednesday 8 May 2024.
— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) May 8, 2024
Latest: https://t.co/jlOoTZL1iF or the BOM Weather app. pic.twitter.com/ZHyF3tLu2L
'Truly loved': parents pay tribute to murdered sons
Debra and Martin Robinson are preparing to bring home the remains of their sons Callum, 33, and Jake, 30, to “the ocean waves of Australia” after travelling across the world to confirm the identities of their bodies.
Originally from Perth, the brothers were travelling with their American friend Carter Rhoad, 30, in the state of Baja California when they failed to check into their accommodation.
A few days later Mexican police arrived at their last known whereabouts and found a campsite covered in blood.
The three bodies were discovered in a well soon after.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that Callum and Jake Robinson have been murdered,” Mrs Robinson told reporters after travelling to Mexico from San Diego, California, where Callum lived.
Our hearts are broken and the world has become a darker place for us.
Martin Robinson thanked everyone involved in the effort to find out what happened to his sons and for their support, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, foreign minister Penny Wong, Australia’s ambassador to Mexico and the Australian federal police.
Debra Robinson said her sons and their friend Rhoad were “young men enjoying their passion of surfing together”.
We have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of emotions and support that we have received.
We know they were truly loved and impacted many lives.
Callum was a loveable, larger-than-life character who considered the US his second home, his mother said.
Jake was a “happy, gentle and compassionate soul” who was pursuing a career in medicine.
- Australian Associated Press
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Hundreds of millions of dollars in budget to incentivise clean energy future
As Australia transitions to net zero carbon emissions, a continent-wide map of the nation’s rare earth deposits will help attract clean energy investment as a top priority in the move away from fossil fuels.
In 2022, 68% of total electricity generation came from fossil fuels, with 47% produced from burning coal.
But to reach its climate goals the federal government must reduce greenhouse emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade before completely negating them by 2050.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has made a plethora of commitments to critical minerals, clean energy and renewables manufacturing.
But today he revealed a landmark $566m, 10-year plan to provide a subterranean “soil and seabed” map to pinpoint where critical materials needed for the construction of clean energy infrastructure lie. The money will be allocated in next week’s budget.
- Australian Associated Press
Read more from Paul Karp’s earlier report in the blog.
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Rural areas demand funding in upcoming budget
Country towns around Australia have resorted to free housing, fundraising, million-dollar offers and even musical jingles to recruit local doctors.
But rural groups say communities shouldn’t have to sing for their supper as the regions grow and prepare to be the centre of a renewable energy transition.
The Regional Australia Institute is urging the federal government to invest in health, housing, and childcare in next week’s budget, as country areas become home to developing clean energy industries.
“The hard infrastructure projects seem to get all the attention and the majority of the investment,” chief executive Liz Ritchie told AAP today.
People are not at the centre of that investment.
We need to ensure ... that is not just a conversation about how business it going to do that ... but what does that investment mean to a regional community.
The think tank has also called for the creation of a national regional cabinet that would form targeted policies.
The National Rural Health Alliance, which represents 51 organisations, last year released financial modelling that showed a $6.55bn annual shortfall in healthcare spending outside the cities.
The alliance said the government should form a rural health strategy and support a community-led primary healthcare model with block funding, worth up to $16.65m over five years.
“Small grants and non-ongoing and innovative funds - while welcome - are not the solution for the lack of core and sustainable funding,” the alliance’s submission said.
More junior doctors should be given exposure to rural general practice under a training program first announced in the 2021-22 budget to address workforce shortages, the Rural Doctors’ Association said.
- Australian Associated Press
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Woman allegedly stabbed in Alexandria, Sydney
An investigation is underway after a woman was allegedly stabbed in Sydney’s south, according to a NSW Police media release.
At about 12.30pm today, emergency services were called to a fitness facility in after reports of an alleged stabbing.
On arrival, officers were told a man believed to be in his 40s had stabbed a 39-year-old woman.
“It is believed that they are known to each other,” according to the release.
The woman was treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics before being taken to Royal Prince Alfred hospital in a stable condition.
A crime scene has been established, and an investigation is underway into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
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eSafety v X Corp hearing cancelled
The planned case management hearing this afternoon over the removal of tweets showing the Wakeley church allaged stabbing attack has been cancelled by consent of both parties.
A hearing scheduled for Friday morning is still set to go ahead.
If you want to get up to speed on the eSafety vs X corp court battle, you can watch Josh’s explainer here:
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Thank you to Emily Wind for rolling today’s live blog – I’ll be taking you through the evening’s updates. Let’s go!
Many thanks for joining me on the blog today. Rafqa Touma will be here to take you through the rest of today’s rolling coverage. Take care.
Labor MPs condemn Sydney council’s decision to ban same-sex parenting book
Labor councillor Mohamad Hussein voted in favour of the motion, which passed six to five.
Federal Labor MP Tanya Plibersek said that banning “age appropriate books about rainbow families is hurtful and narrow minded nonsense”. She wrote on X:
Families come in all shapes and sizes. It’s love that makes a family… It doesn’t matter who you love. It doesn’t matter what your family looks like. In 2024, what matters is acceptance, love and kindness.
NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, called on Cumberland city council to reverse its decision, writing on X:
Supporting families is one of the best things local, state & federal governments can do. Banning books about families is one of the worst things.
This follows earlier comments from NSW housing minister Rose Jackson, who specifically condemned the Labor councillor who supported the motion (see our earlier post).
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Book banning does not ‘bode well for social cohesion’, civil liberties council says
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties says the decision of a Sydney council to ban a book on same-sex parenting is “out of step with Australian values and is discriminatory”.
The council’s president Lydia Shelly said in a statement that banning books is the “polar opposite” of what public libraries are intended for – to provide “essential repositories of knowledge and information [with] spaces for learning, exploration, and intellectual freedom”.
If books do not reflect a person’s religious, cultural or political beliefs, they are not forced to attend a library to read them. History tells us that banning books never bodes well for social cohesion.
The civil liberties council accused Cumberland city council of allowing religious beliefs to be “weaponised against the LGBTQI community instead of demonstrating leadership and the values of our democratic, multi-faith country.”
It is calling on the council to reverse its book ban, apologise to the public for their initial decision and require the councillors who approved of the motion to undergo inclusivity training.
Greens call on government to vote to recognise Palestinian statehood this week
Greens senator and foreign affairs spokesperson Jordon Steele-John says Australia should not abstain or delay voting to recognise Palestinian statehood, and “just vote yes”.
He made the comments ahead of a UN general assembly meeting on Friday, where members will decide if Palestine should be given full member status. Steele-John wrote on X:
For decades the State of Israel has prevented the realisation of Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, violating each component of that right, willfully pursuing the “de-Palestinianisation” of the occupied territory and exploitation of its resources.
For that same amount of time, both Liberal and Labor governments have refused to take meaningful action to stop these human rights abuses. In 2012, the Labor government actively helped to scuttle Palestinian Statehood by abstaining in a similar vote.
We can’t let the mistakes of the past repeat themselves. Australia must vote yes at the UN this week so we can work towards a just and lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis.
For more on this, Guardian Australia’s Daniel Hurst has written an explainer ahead of the vote:
Circling back to Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas’ speech
Taking questions, Tim Pallas is asked by the Catholic school sector why students at their low-fee schools aren’t included in the $400 payments announced in yesterday’s budget. He replied:
The policies that we announced yesterday around access to the government’s support for school participants, that is for families and [the] $400 payment is available firstly to all public school participants. That’s about 750,000 [students] or thereabouts. And there’s about another 50,000 of participants in the private sector schools who have access to a healthcare card who will also be entitled to those benefits.
Asked why it wasn’t means tested, Pallas said:
That is a de facto means test … I remember speaking to Paul Keating about this many, many years ago when he was talking about why he didn’t bother means testing a particular initiative they put in place and he said, ‘Well, the problem is all you’re doing is employing a truckload more bureaucrats to check whether or not people qualify for means testing, and probably that money is better spent in basically providing it to those who need it.’
NSW Labor MP condemns Labor councillor who voted for book ban
NSW Labor MP Rose Jackson has condemned the Labor councillor who voted in favour of banning a same-sex parenting book from local libraries.
In case you missed it: Cumberland city council voted to place a blanket ban on same-sex parenting books from local libraries. Labor councillor Mohamad Hussein voted in favour of the motion, which passed six to five.
Jackson, a member of the Minns ministry, wrote on X earlier this morning that “book bans should exist nowhere”.
Stop being weirdly obsessed with how other [people] live their private lives and thinking you look tough punching down on minorities. It’s pathetic. Don’t like the books? Don’t read them.
When someone responded that it was “your party”, she replied to them and said:
I think one Labor councillor did vote for it and I’m condemning them.
Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas begins taking questions
We’re now at the Q&A part of Tim Pallas’ event with the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In yesterday’s budget, he cut back on several projects and delayed some reforms due to inflationary pressures and workforce shortages.
Asked whether the state’s huge infrastructure project is responsible for these issues, Pallas responds:
Every participant in the economy that spends probably plays a role in the inflationary environment. And I think it would be true to say that if you look at what’s happening in the construction industry, like we got $208bn of capital works project commencing or underway at the moment, effectively funded through state programs. That is a mind blowing number – $24bn in the last financial year, was essentially state government investment.
He concedes this spend, as well as competition from other states, has played a role:
We know that there is a law of diminishing returns, if you spend too much on infrastructure, if you’re fighting the private sector to get your work done as opposed to their work done, if you’re fighting other states for the skills you need, and ultimately you’re pushing the price up. So we have to take the air out of it. Yes, I think it’s fair to say that with regard to infrastructure, we’ve had an inflationary effect, because we’ve had great ambitions and we want to get going.
Pallas says in spite of this, projects have only gone over budget by 3.9% this financial year:
Most of that was extra costs around North East Link. That’s not bad 3.9% when you’re looking at a 4.1% increase in inflation.
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Victorian treasurer plans to release economic growth statement later this year
Tim Pallas also explained his plans to “release an economic growth statement” later this year that will address six key pillars. They are:
A more efficient tax system
Promoting innovation and developing stronger industries
Keeping Victoria moving
Growing a skilled Victorian workforce
Better regulation and planning to make it easier to do business in Victoria
Higher quality and more efficient public services
Pallas announced he will be setting up an advisory committee to provide ideas and advice during the process.
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Tim Pallas also said the state was cutting its spend “dramatically”. During his speech he said:
We’re also making sensible and disciplined decisions to reduce expenditure. That is the expenditure of government expenses are growing at 2.2% in this budget, below nominal economic growth at 5.3%. So we’re shrinking the size of government as a share of the economy.
Now I can’t underline exactly how dramatic this change is. Can I put it this way? We have not seen a decline in terms of the disparity between government expenditure and economic growth of this magnitude and consistency for 15 years in the state of Victoria.
Victorian treasurer labels generational wealth inequality as 'national tragedy'
Victorian treasurer, Tim Pallas, says the inequality between generations is a “national tragedy” and requires urgent action.
Speaking at a Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry event in Melbourne, Pallas says the nation will have to confront the fact Gen Z and Millennials “are finding it much harder to break into the housing market than their parents did”.
Young Victorians are also contributing more to older generations by the national tax and transfer systems. Transfers from households aged 25 to 34 years of age to those over 65 years have increased by 88% since the late 1980s. What is happening is nothing short of a national tragedy. We are effectively seeing the greatest transfer of wealth from one generation to another in the wrong direction.
Physicians want significant investment for disease control centre in next week’s budget
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) is calling for Tuesday’s federal budget to include significant funding towards the new Australian Centre for Disease Control.
According to the RACP, every dollar invested in prevention has the potential to provide $14.30 in benefits to the health budget. The Australian Centre for Disease Control was an election promise in response to the Covid pandemic and growing rates of chronic disease, and it began operating earlier in 2024.
But RACP president-elect, Professor Jennifer Martin, said without adequate funding, it will not be effective.
We had long advocated for an Australian Centre for Disease Control but what we don’t want to see is for it to become ineffective through under-funding and limited scope.
She said the focus of the Centre also needed to be “right”.
While the pandemic has put Covid and other infectious diseases in the spotlight, 64% of the total disease burden is caused by a few often preventable chronic conditions – cancer, mental health conditions, substance use disorders, musculoskeletal conditions, cardiovascular diseases and neurological conditions.
These are commonly caused or prevented by lifestyle factors like smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity and physical activity. Martin said:
So there is huge scope for more investment in prevention and better outcomes for patients and the health system.
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More on the new report from the Disability Advocacy Network Australia
In launching the report, Disability Advocacy Network Australia’s chief executive Jeff Smith said:
The NDIS Review and Disability Royal Commission were welcome and necessary, but the complexity and breadth of their findings is hard to grapple with, and the timelines for some recommendations stretch beyond 2050.
We are impatient for change, after years of fighting, of telling our stories, of figuring out solutions and campaigning for an end to the abuse so many of us live with.
Our new Priorities Project Report distils key issues from both reports, and outlines practical changes that could be up and running within a year or two.
These changes don’t need another strategy, or more consultation, or more delay. They need to start now.
Disability advocates urge practical action from governments now
Campaigners have called for a “downpayment of trust” by urgently implementing a series of practical reforms that would help pave the way for greater systemic supports for people with disability.
After consultation with advocates, people with disability and representative organisations, Disability Advocacy Network Australia’s suggestions include piloting a disability aids and equipment scheme, similar to the aged care sector’s goods, equipment and assistive technology program, establishing specialist housing navigators for any person with disability who needs housing support, and a home modification scheme that operates outside of the NDIS.
In a new report released today, DANA also recommends a pilot of a disability-led community inclusion hubs, which would help people make connections to disability services and supports, host activities or run information sessions, make equipment available for hire, and allow walk-in support for people with disability experiencing crisis.
The report laments how labyrinthine and drawn out the recommendations were from of the disability royal commission, and says its suggestions are “practical, local, and can be up and running in the next year or two”.
More to come.
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Dutton and Albanese trade barbs over flare incident
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has continued his rhetoric that the prime minister is “very weak” on China, hours after Anthony Albanese dismissed the Coalition’s claims as “absolute nonsense”.
Speaking in Rockhampton, Dutton said the Chinese government continued to spread “propaganda” about incidents, including Saturday’s dangerous manoeuvre affecting an Australian helicopter in international waters in the Yellow Sea, and the Australian government must clearly rebuff that narrative.
Dutton called on Albanese to “stand up and show the leadership” that the public would demand from their government.
Earlier today, Albanese reiterated that the Chinese military’s actions were “unprofessional and unacceptable” and said the foreign ministry’s spokesperson’s claim that it occurred “close to Chinese airspace” was a tacit admission that Australian personnel were in international waters when enforcing UN sanctions against North Korea.
In an interview with the radio station 6PR, Albanese hit back at the Coalition’s claim that he was “a weak prime minister”, including regarding China. Albanese said the Coalition pushed “absolute nonsense all the time in order to hide the fact that people think that Peter Dutton is arrogant, won’t listen [and] has no sense of compassion about any issue”.
Albanese said Dutton should “actually stand up for Australia here” rather than try to score domestic political points on an issue that related to Australia’s international engagement.
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Former WA premier calls for GST revenue sharing to be based on population
In Canberra, the former WA premier Colin Barnett and independent economist Saul Eslake have been addressing the National Press Club.
Barnett has been criticising the GST revenue sharing between states, labelling it a “huge, cumbersome, complex, bureaucratic process” that “just does not work in this century”.
He said there were “lots of anomalies in the GST system” and said, as an example:
The fact that you have royalty income treated and included in GST allocation calculations, revenue from poker machines not included. Where is that for social policy? Western Australia doesn’t have poker machines, so basically is penalised because of that.
Barnett argued the “system is failing” and GST revenue sharing should be based on population:
After all, the major expenditures of state governments are health and education and they are driven by population virtually alone. That is the logic.
He said, for arguments sake, the government should retain around 10% to distribute on a needs basis between states:
The smallest states – South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory – would get the vast amount. That would be more than is currently redistributed under the current system.
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Pro-Palestine encampment established at the University of Wollongong
A pro-Palestine camp has been established at a second site in New South Wales, with University of Wollongong organisers pitching tents at the campus today.
The camp launched at 12pm with a rally outside the university’s library, persisting despite the rain.
It follows the initial establishment of a camp at the University of Sydney two weeks ago. Camps have since spread to South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and the ACT.
The protesters are demanding the University of Wollongong disclose and divest from all ties to the “genocidal Israeli military”, including Bisalloy steel.
It’s the first time a camp has been established at a regional centre.
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Australia must do ‘everything in its power’ to secure permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Amnesty says
Amnesty International says Australia must do “everything within its power” to secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and prevent further military offences.
You can read the latest about the Israeli offensive on Rafah below:
Amnesty International Australia’s spokesperson for the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, Mohamed Duar, said in a statement:
Despite international condemnation, Israeli forces persist in targeting civilians continuously defying international law time and time again.
Palestinians in Australia who have been desperately attempting to evacuate loved ones face further anguish as the Rafah border closes and the trickle of aid that was allowed in has now come to a complete halt.
Australia must urgently do everything within its power to prevent further military offensives, death and destruction and secure a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza. Australia must also uphold its obligation to prevent genocide by taking urgent steps to ensure Israel complies with the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures.
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Albanese calls for passage of deportation bill in budget week
Anthony Albanese has used questioning at a Perth press conference about the alleged bashing of the Perth grandmother Ninette Simons to call for the Senate to pass Labor’s deportation bill.
Yesterday, a Senate inquiry reported back on the bill, with the Greens calling for it to be rejected in full and the Coalition proposing a suite of amendments. It’s still unclear if the opposition will vote it down (see earlier post).
At the press conference, Albanese said:
We have a separation of the judicial processes from the political processes and what the high court has determined is that governments, politicians can’t make decisions which are punitive. And if they do, they will be overturned by the court … Since then we have been determining as a government response to that.
We have put forward the strongest possible legislation. And I note the last piece of legislation we brought forward was voted upon by Labor and Coalition members in the House of Representatives on the Tuesday and was then opposed and deferred by the Coalition and the Greens political party on the Wednesday, and kicked off to a committee process, so that legislation has still not been passed. I hope that the Senate passes that legislation next week.
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UniSuper online services down for more than a week
Online services for superannuation fund UniSuper have been down for more than one week, with the fund blaming Google Cloud for the issue.
The fund’s online services have been down since at least 29 April and according to an update on its website, services would progressively be restored from tomorrow.
But the UniSuper CEO, Peter Chun, said some services would “still be limited as we continue the restoration”.
Google Cloud issued a statement on Monday stating the outage was not the result of any malicious behaviour or a cyber-attack, but was “unprecedented” and an “isolated incident”.
The disruption of UniSuper services was caused by a combination of rare issues at Google Cloud that resulted in an inadvertent misconfiguration during the provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud, which triggered a previously unknown software bug that impacted UniSuper’s systems. This was an unprecedented occurrence, and measures have been taken to ensure this issue does not happen again.
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Queensland water minister says Glencore carbon capture project a ‘massive risk’
Swiss mining giant Glencore’s controversial Queensland proposal to store carbon dioxide in a section of the Great Artesian Basin has been labelled a “massive risk” by the state’s water minister.
The water minister, Glenn Butcher, was speaking to Beef TV – part of the state’s week-long beef festival in Rockhampton – just weeks before the state government is due to make a decision on Glencore’s controversial project.
He said:
There has never been anything done like this in the world – into a water aquifer. It’s a massive risk for the longevity and security of water for these communities. Surely there are other places in Australia where you could go into a space to put the carbon. I am pretty confident from what I have seen that this does not stack up environmentally or scientifically.
Earlier, the federal resources minister, Madeleine King, said she supported carbon capture and storage broadly but would not be drawn on Glencore’s project, which aims to bury 330,000 tonnes of CO2 into an aquifer that is more than 2km deep. She said:
It’s not helpful for me to interject in that debate, and so I won’t on the specifics of that. But I do understand people’s concerns, and I understand what Glencore is trying to achieve as well.
The project, which is a trial ahead of a potentially much larger project, has sparked widespread condemnation from farming and conservation groups.
Agriculture group Agforce has gone to court to try to force the federal government to consider the project under national laws.
A Senate inquiry into the project, requested by One Nation, is ongoing after gaining support from the Greens and the Coalition.
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The secretary of the Department of Defence, Greg Moriarty, acknowledged that his department needed to “embrace risk” and bring projects into service more quickly.
He told today’s Air and Space Power Conference that the government had ordered officials to bring defence projects into service as soon as they can “successfully achieve the lowest acceptable level” of their purpose.
Moriarty explained that, until now, officials had taken longer to get projects to a much higher standard:
This is going to make a real change and it’ll challenge Defence and our internal procurement cultures in some ways, where we often want to spend a lot of extra time and a lot of extra money getting the last 10% [of performance].
The government has told us: move away from that approach, go for ‘minimum viable capability’. At its core, minimum viable capability is about getting new capabilities into service faster. It retains a focus on value for money – that will absolutely continue to be important – but it’s placing greater emphasis on speed to acquisition.
In other remarks, Moriarty said he and the chief of the defence force acknowledged recruiting, retaining and growing a highly specialised and skilled workforce was “one of our biggest challenges at the moment”.
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Defence department boss says bureaucrats under pressure to deliver projects more quickly
The head of the Department of Defence says he is coming under pressure from federal ministers to speed up its processes to select and deliver projects.
Greg Moriarty, the secretary of the department, did not make the comment as a complaint, but as an acknowledgement that bureaucrats needed to be “responsive to changing circumstances and priorities”.
Speaking at an air force conference in Canberra today, Moriarty said he and the chief of the defence force (CDF) were reforming procurement processes:
We have to remove unnecessary and repetitive steps in our approach to contracting with defence industry and adopting more tailored approaches to procurement. And the ministers are certainly putting pressure on myself and the CDF to really shrink the amount of time involved in tendering and in developing proposals. So that is something that we certainly in the department are focused on, at ministerial direction.
In February the defence minister, Richard Marles, brushed off media reports that he had given his department a “dressing down”. But Marles also told parliamentary question time he made “no excuses or apologies for demanding excellence and a culture of excellence in the Department of Defence and in the Australian defence force and there is a way to go before we have that culture of excellence”.
More to come.
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The Lehrmann matter will now resume at 12.45pm.
Retirees tempted back to teach and mentor graduates
More than 260 teachers have expressed an interest in returning to work since the NSW Department of Education in November began contacting staff who had quit in the past five years – lured back with promises of better pay and less work.
A new wage deal came into effect in October, making state school teachers some of the nation’s best paid. The government has also promised changes that will lead to lower administrative workloads.
NSW still faces a teacher shortage and officials were working to remove barriers to recently retired teachers returning to classrooms, the education minister, Prue Car, told ABC radio today.
We need those experienced teachers in our schools, not just to plug the shortage, but also … to help with the mentoring of younger teachers, beginning teachers that we find leave too early as well.
The department has contacted more than 1,500 departed teachers to see if they would return to work, with some 145 in a pool for casual and temporary work across more than 600 schools.
About 60% of the returning teachers had come out of retirement, motivated by better pay and reduced workloads, the government said.
– Australian Associated Press
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Councillor defends ban on same-sex parenting books at local libraries
The Cumberland city councillor who proposed the book ban, Steve Christou, has defended the decision. Speaking on the Today show earlier, Christou said he had received complaints from residents who “don’t want any form of sexualised books”.
The Today co-host Karl Stefanovic pushed back and questioned whether a book on same-sex parents constitutes sexualisation. Christou responded: “It’s not about that … it’s about [it being] available to you.”
Stefanovic: “You just said it was as I said. Is that what you think same-sex couples are saying?”
Christou: “No, Karl, I said any form of sexualisation shouldn’t be exposed in our libraries.”
Asked about threats from the state government it may review funding for the council, Christou urged them not to take funding and said:
If the government want to take away funding for one of the most socially disadvantaged communities in NSW because their democratically elected council stood up for the values which they believe represents their local community, well shame on them.
Asked about the message this would send to same-sex parents in his council area, Christou argued that “it’s not just targeted at same-sex couples” and the plan was to review “all the books in the libraries that might expose children to any form of sexualisation”.
The council’s move has been widely condemned by politicians and equality organisations. The Wentworth MP, Allegra Spender, said the move was “absolutely appalling” and a “shameful attempt to erase the experience of LGBTQ Australians”. The NSW housing minister, Rose Jackson, labelled the move “pathetic” and wrote on X:
Stop being weirdly obsessed with how other [people] live their private lives and thinking you look tough punching down on minorities … Don’t like the books? Don’t read them.
Meanwhile Equality Australia has launched a petition for the council to rescind the motion, to be presented to them on 15 May.
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Bret Walker SC to represent Elon Musk/X in legal battle against eSafety commissioner
The federal court has confirmed that Elon Musk’s X will be represented by the high-profile Australian barrister Bret Walker SC in the company’s legal battle against the eSafety commissioner over the removal of 65 tweets containing video of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at his Wakeley church.
There will be a case management hearing at 4.30pm today which will be streamed on the federal court’s YouTube page. It is ahead of an interlocutory hearing on Friday morning when the court will determine whether to order X to remove the tweets. An interim order to hide the posts globally is due to expire on Friday.
X has made the tweets unavailable to people accessing the site from Australia, but eSafety has argued Australians with virtual private network (VPN) connections can still access the tweets, in breach of the order.
At a hearing last month, X’s then barrister Marcus Hoyne said the case was above his paygrade and Walker had been approached to take on the case.
Since the last hearing, X has filed five affidavits to the court, including one from Emmanuel which Hoyne had said argued the video should be available. The eSafety commissioner has filed an additional two affidavits.
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China comments on air incident confirm Australian account: PM
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has responded to China’s foreign ministry accusing an Australian navy helicopter of deliberately flying “within close range” of Chinese airspace in a “provocative move” in the latest military altercation between the two nations.
Albanese told 6PR radio:
I reject that, I do stand by comments I’ve made.
Albanese argued that China’s position that Australian defence force personnel were flying “close to Chinese airspace” is in fact “a confirmation this chopper was in international airspace, international waters”.
He said:
The Chinese spokesperson’s comments do nothing to undermine or question what is the Australian defence force’s assessment of the PLA’s unsafe behaviour.
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Bruce Lehrmann costs hearing continues
The federal court has heard Bruce Lehrmann did not have a third party lined up to pay his legal costs and his lawyers agreed to a no-win no-fee arrangement.
The costs for all parties have been estimated to be between $8m and $10m for the 24-day civil trial, which Lehrmann lost.
Lehrmann’s lawyer, Paul Svilans, told the court his firm acted for the former Liberal staffer on a no-win no-fee basis.
Justice Michael Lee said according to the documents produced by the applicant there was “no agreement by a third party to pay the costs”.
“It was a conditional costs agreement whereby there’s no obligation to pay the amount of costs in the event the proceedings were unsuccessful,” Lee said this morning before adjourning until 11.30am.
Lee said the two key points are there have been a lot of costs and “they’re not recoverable because Mr Lehrmann lost”.
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Ladies Lounge artist comments on decision to appeal anti-discrimination ruling
As our arts reporter Kelly Burke reported yesterday, Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) will appeal an anti-discrimination decision that ordered the museum to allow men entry to its women-only Ladies Lounge. You can read that full story below:
The artist behind the work, Kirsha Kaechele, spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier today and said the decision to appeal was because “we need to take this conversation further”. She said:
It doesn’t seem right that the Ladies Lounge has to close. I think the court took too narrow a reading of the anti-discrimination act and that in fact if you assess the act, we already meet some of the exemptions and very small changes would allow us to meet all of them.
She said the court case is “part of the art” and if the appeal is lost, it provides “an opportunity to reassess the writing of that law, the legislation itself”.
Because I definitely believe that spaces like this, where women can get away from men, are critical, especially right now – but really in the context of millions of years, thousands of years.
In an interview posted to the Mona blog, she suggested transforming the lounge to either a church or a toilet to meet certain exemptions under the legislation:
I once visited a colonial-era mansion in Manila that had two toilets, side by side, with a chessboard in the centre. So there is real precedent for engaging in a variety of activities in the toilet.
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Council’s same-sex parenting book ban threatens funding
The decision to ban books on same-sex parenting from local libraries has placed one western Sydney council’s funding under threat, AAP reports, as the NSW government investigates the action.
Cumberland city council, which covers a population of about 240,000 people living near Parramatta, narrowly voted to “take immediate action to rid same-sex parents books/materials in council’s library service”. The vote passed by six votes to five.
But the NSW arts minister, John Graham, said banning books was a bad sign for civilisations, adding local councillors should not be engaging in censorship:
It is up to readers to choose which book to take off the shelf.
We are examining the consequences this decision may have for the council continuing to receive library funding from the NSW government.
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Costs hearing on long-running Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial
Justice Michael Lee says he hopes his decision on costs to be delivered on Friday afternoon, 10 May, will be the last appearance he makes in the long-running Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial.
At a hearing on 1 May, Lee reserved his decision on costs and granted Lehrmann an extension of time to consider an appeal. Lee said in the federal court today:
I would like to make that the last judgment I need to deliver in relation to this matter and potentially the last appearance, subject to any issue arising upon the adoption of the cost referees report.
Lehrmann’s lawyer, Paul Svilans, told the court his firm acted for the former Liberal staffer on a no-win no-fee basis.
Lee quipped that he appreciated Svilans was not being paid to appear in court and can be excused. He said:
It was a conditional cost agreement whereby there’s no obligation to pay the amount of costs in the event that the proceedings were unsuccessful.
The costs hearing has adjourned until 11.30am.
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Australia confers with New Zealand on Rafah and looming UN vote
The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has spoken with her New Zealand counterpart, Winston Peters, to discuss Israel’s plans for a ground invasion of Rafah and the looming UN vote on recognising Palestine as a full member state.
The call, which happened yesterday before Wong departed on a bipartisan trip to Tuvalu, is part of the Australian government’s discussions with close partners about the situation in the Middle East and how to handle the UN general assembly vote slated for Friday (New York time).
Earlier this week, Wong had phone calls with Mohammad Mustafa, the relatively new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (which is dominated by Fatah, a rival to Hamas, and exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank), and with Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed, the foreign affairs minister of the United Arab Emirates.
It is understood the call with Peters covered similar terrain: concerns about Rafah, the push to release hostages, the prospects for a ceasefire agreement, and the UN general assembly vote. The wording of the draft motion is being intensely debated and negotiated, as many countries look to find a way to attempt to give some hope to Palestinians and kickstart a process towards a two-state solution.
Australia has tended to move closely with New Zealand and Canada since December, when all three countries shifted together to vote in favour of an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Australia, New Zealand and Canada also sounded the alarm in February about the consequences of a Rafah ground invasion.
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Man wrongfully named as Bondi Junction killer asks police to consider prosecution of those who identified him on social media
The Sydney man Benjamin Cohen, who was wrongly named on air by Seven News as the Bondi Junction killer, has asked police to consider the prosecution of those on social media who identified him.
Cohen’s lawyer, Patrick George, said he had provided the commissioner of police with a comprehensive brief of evidence by users of the social media platform X.
These persons maliciously posted the false accusation for their own improper purposes, in some cases simply to draw attention to themselves. It spread like wildfire not just in Australia but throughout the world over the Saturday night.
The conduct raises serious concerns for the welfare and safety of people in the community as a result of such malicious and irresponsible use of social media.
Cohen reached a confidential settlement with the network last month. On the Saturday night after the stabbings, Cohen’s LinkedIn profile was shared on X by accounts falsely claiming he resembled the attacker. After he settled with Seven, Cohen said:
Users who abuse a platform to target individuals or communities should be held accountable for the consequences of their actions and platforms should be more accountable for the content they host.
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Back to the Victorian budget: Allan on housing, scrapping of sick leave for casuals
The premier, Jacinta Allan, says housing remains a priority for the government despite little funding in the budget. She suggests the government is allowing the private sector to build more homes thanks to changes introduced via its housing statement last year.
She says a scrapped medical precinct near Arden station in North Melbourne will be replaced with more housing:
We know though that there is so much more that we need to do in this area, which is why the opportunity comes at Arden to build more homes on that site.
Allan says the decision to wind down its shared equity scheme for first home buyers next year is because the federal government has stepped in:
We have in so many different areas across the government, where we had a failure of the previous federal Liberal National government, whether it was priority primary care centres, whether it’s with childcare, or in this instance, the homebuyer fund. We stepped in. We made the decision to step in and provide programs and support to the Victorian community. Now that we have a federal Labor government who is focused on these issue, it just makes sense to bring to a conclusion the work that we’ve done.
She says the same principle applies with the paid sick leave scheme for casuals, which was also scrapped yesterday, much to the dismay of the unions.
Allan says:
We stepped in during the pandemic. We established the sick pay guarantee as a pilot during that period of time when we didn’t have a government in Canberra that had a focus on supporting workers. And that is why now that we have a federal Labor government who have reformed industrial relations laws in this country to provide more support to casual workers it makes sense that that pilot has come to a close.
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Greens senator ‘disappointed’ government has ruled out greater divestment powers for supermarkets
In case you missed it: the final report of the supermarket Senate inquiry was handed down yesterday, recommending that major supermarkets should be forcibly broken up if they engage in anti-competitive behaviour.
You can read the full details, and all the recommendations, below from Jonathan Barrett and Amy Remeikis:
The chair of the committee, Greens senator Nick McKim, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning and responded to news that the government has ruled out greater divestment powers. He said:
I’m disappointed because ultimately, the Greens established this inquiry because we wanted to put downward pressure on food and grocery prices because we understand how millions of Australians are really struggling to make things meet. Divestiture powers would accomplish that. And ultimately, the prime minister and Labor have now taken the sides of the corporate supermarket giants and their billion-dollar-plus annual profits, and in doing so, they’ve failed to take the side of millions of Australian shoppers who are really struggling to make ends meet.
McKim said a core recommendation in the report was to make price gouging unlawful, and if the recommendations are taken up as a whole, he has “no doubt that they will bring food and grocery prices down in Australia”.
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Allan responds to criticism Catholic schools missed out on $400 vouchers in budget
A key sweetener of the Victorian budget was $400 vouchers for students in government schools, but it has led to criticism given the program is not means-tested – and Catholic and other faith schools miss out.
Asked if wealthy parents should give money back to their school, Jacinta Allan said that she would be:
That’s ultimately a decision for every individual family. If I can give my own experience, I’m proud to send my kids to a great local government primary school and I’ll have a chat to the principal and say, our allocation can be be provided directly to the school because there’s a bunch of programs [that] our school provides. I’m sure that funding will be welcomed.
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Circling back to Victorian premier Jacinta Allan’s press conference
On the decision to delay the expansion of the free kinder program – a key election promise – Jacinta Allan said workforce shortages are to blame.
She has been taking questions on yesterday’s state budget, and said:
We know that there’s workforce shortages and pricing pressures on businesses and workforces around the globe, and we have to recognise that we can’t stubbornly push on and wish it was different.
We had to make a decision. We’re continuing our massive expansion of four-year-old kinder – it’s already happening in regional Victoria [and] is already happening in many parts of metropolitan Melbourne. We’ve just had to take a more gradual rollout as we achieve a full 30 hours of four-year-old kinder in the years ahead because we need to be able to train and scale up the workforce, which is why we’re spending more than $350m on early childhood workforce initiatives.
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Linda Reynolds and Brittany Higgins to return to mediation this month
Linda Reynolds and Brittany Higgins will return to mediation on 21 May, according to a listing in Western Australia’s supreme court.
No details about whether the hearing is in person or online were available but a strategic conference is set down for Friday 24 May.
Reynolds, the former defence minister, is suing Higgins and her fiance, David Sharaz, over a series of social media posts she says damaged her reputation.
Higgins’s application to vacate the trial listed for six weeks in late July was turned down.
Last week Sharaz threw in the towel in his defamation battle against Reynolds, tweeting he would no longer fight the case.
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Will Victorians ever see the Melbourne airport train line built?
In yesterday’s Victorian budget the government said the project was at least four years delayed, due to an ongoing dispute with the airport’s operators.
Taking questions from reporters this morning, the premier, Jacinta Allan, said:
We’ve been really clear that we want to deliver these projects in the most efficient way in terms of time and value for money. I think that’s fair enough. The airport’s not putting a cent towards this project, not one single cent and [are making] demands on the state and federal governments that have been quite unreasonable.
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Victorian premier spruiks breakfast program included in state budget
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is at a primary school in Melbourne’s inner north spruiking the government’s breakfast program, funded in yesterday’s state budget.
She says $21.1m will help expand the program – which provides healthy breakfast for students as well as lunches, snacks and take-home food packs for students experiencing disadvantage – to every government school by 2025.
Allan says it’s a budget measure focused on “supporting families”:
It’s a recognition that families across the state right now are doing it tough. The cost-of-living pressures are real and it’s adding to the cost of everything, and we know that if we can provide practical support, primarily based in a school setting, we can make a real difference to students and their ability to learn and make the most of their time at school and a real difference to support parents and families as well.
But we’re expecting most questions today to be focused on several election commitments that have either been scrapped or delayed in the budget.
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‘Pretty sad day’ when local government bans books, says NSW minister
The NSW health minister has said it’s a “pretty sad day” when local governments are concerned about banning books rather than concentrating on core issues such as roads and rates.
Ryan Park was on ABC Sydney this morning, responding to news that Cumberland city council had voted to place a blanket ban on same-sex parenting books at local libraries. You can read the full story on this below:
Speaking on the radio earlier today, Park said:
I think it’s a pretty sad day when local government is worried about banning books. I think the community and ratepayers out there would want them to concentrate on roads, rates and rubbish and making sure their local parks are clean, tidy and well kept.
That’s what I expect of my local council. From my years of dealing with the local council, I think those who focus on those sort of core issues tend to be doing well by the community.
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Queensland government accepts recommendation for caps on K’gari tourism
The number of tourists on K’gari national park could soon be capped on the busiest days of the year, amid a wave of dingo attacks.
The Queensland government endorsed “in principle” a recommendation from a 2022 study that it regulate the number of vehicles that can book the boat to the island on the 20 busiest days of the year.
The idea “is undergoing practical evaluation and consideration”, the government said. It would be included in the development of a new camping booking system.
But the department of the environment rejected recommendations to introduce fishing licences to better understand the number of fishers and a levy on visitors to commercial and private premises. It said it has implemented a crackdown on permit holders to make sure they’re following the rules. It has also hired 24 additional park rangers.
The environment minister, Leanne Linard, said campers spent more than 337,000 nights on K’gari in 2023, a number that is increasing:
The study will help the Queensland parks and wildlife service develop a new draft management plan for K’gari to help balance visitor experience and protect the area’s natural and cultural values.
Previously known as Fraser Island, the huge sand island has the world’s best preserved dingo colonies. Several of the animals have been killed in recent months, after high-profile attacks on visitors. Rangers and the Butchulla people, who hold native title over the island, blame the sheer number of tourists on the island, and their bad behaviour, for the issue.
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Retail union backs proposal for compressed work week for Woolworths employees
Woolworths employees are one step closer to flexible working arrangements with the retail union backing a new proposal.
As reported in The Australian, delegates from the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) have backed a proposal for a compressed work week as part of the new Woolworths enterprise agreement.
The enterprise agreement is one of the biggest in the country, covering about 130,000 workers.
Under the proposal – which remains subject to a vote of employees in coming weeks – workers would be able to complete their 38-hour, five-day working week over four days, by working four 9.5-hour shifts.
The SDA NSW secretary, Bernie Smith, is reported as saying workers would need to complete up to four weekend shifts over a four-week period as part of the arrangement:
That could be one weekend shift per week ie a Saturday or a Sunday, or it could be two weekends working Saturday and Sunday, and two weekends off. This is a common retail roster.
Support for a four-day work week has grown rapidly over the past few years. For more on this, you can read this fantastic piece from Celina Ribeiro:
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More details on Australia’s sanctions on alleged Russian leader of ransomware group
As we flagged earlier, Australia has imposed a targeted financial sanction and travel ban on the Russian citizen Dmitry Khoroshev for his alleged senior leadership role in the LockBit ransomware group. You can read all the details on this below:
The Australian federal police published more details on the matter this morning. In a statement it acknowledged this is the second use of Australia’s thematic autonomous cyber sanctions framework, after sanctioning Russian man Alexander Ermakov in October for his role in the cyber-attack on Medibank.
The AFP is working with state and territory police to work through the 119 reports of crime involving Australian businesses and individuals who were targeted by LockBit.
In many cases, Australian victims had their data exfiltrated, encrypted, or both, severely impacting business and individuals.
The AFP is working closely with Australian LockBit victims and is assisting overseas law enforcement to help continue building a global case against the ransomware group.
The AFP acting assistant commissioner Chris Goldsmid said by taking away Khoroshev’s anonymity, it has “severely undermined [his] credibility with cybercriminals and also signals any dealings they have with him could be subject to law enforcement action”.
In Australia, we have a range of evidence and information to work through, including IP addresses, tools and software deployed on Australian-owned systems, plus the infrastructure and communication used by cybercriminals.
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Palaszczuk appointed international ambassador for Smart Energy Council
The former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will become an international ambassador for the Smart Energy Council, the Courier Mail is reporting.
The official announcement will reportedly be made today, with Palaszczuk’s first project to be leading the council’s delegation to China on 10 June.
Palaszczuk announced her retirement from politics last December, stating she had “given my all” and “now is the time for me to leave”. She had served in the Queensland parliament for 18 years.
The Smart Energy Council is the independent body for Australian’s smart energy industry, focused on the transition to net zero carbon emissions.
The Courier Mail reports that Palaszczuk is not expected to have any formal engagement with the Queensland government in her role.
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RBA is staying calm and carrying on, and so should we
As you probably noticed if you’re a mortgage holder, the Reserve Bank yesterday left its key interest rate on hold.
Somewhat missing from the alarming headlines this morning – “RBA on high alert to increase” (the Australian Financial Review); “Bullock’s red flag on inflation” (The Australian); “RBA delivers pre-budget headache to Chalmers” (the Sydney Morning Herald) – was the key point the central bank did not add a “tightening bias” in its statement that would have inferred it is inclined to hike rates again.
The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, made the now pro forma comments about not ruling anything in or out, but on the whole she came across at yesterday’s media conference as pretty relaxed about current conditions. (Watch her conference if you’re keen.)
Indeed, she wasn’t particularly fussed about governments stepping up their spending (hello, Queensland) and is clearly in close contact with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers. The Treasury secretary, Steven Kennedy, sits on the RBA board, too, so there would be few secrets between the two agencies.
Now, it might be that Bullock is complacent and we do get a big inflation spike, or that the federal budget next week turns out to be stoking more demand (ie spending more) than anticipated. We’ll know soon enough.
Mind you, there are some interesting questions about the economy, and whether there’s something mercurial if not miraculous about it, as I note here:
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Labor to help business pass environmental approvals
Continuing from our last post: Anthony Albanese will also use his speech to flag support for business to help pass environmental approvals. According to an advance copy, he will say:
We need faster and better processes to local investment in local projects … Whether it’s critical minerals or renewable energy, the current environmental approval process is far too slow. That’s why we are investing nearly $100m to speed up decision-making.
More support for staff reviewing business proposals for renewables and critical minerals. More support for business to help them comply with environmental law. Providing a better steer on site selection, with more surveying work ahead of time. And better planning and cooperation with state and territory governments to make it clear where development can occur – and where the no-go areas are.
And to join up community and industry needs, so priority projects have the right surrounding network of roads, rail – and community infrastructure. Many of you have heard me say it before: our government is pro-worker and pro-business. That’s never been a point of tension or compromise for us – it’s a matter of logic.
We know that without thriving businesses, there are no secure jobs or fair wages. And our plans for a future made in Australia are also about making it easier to do business in Australia.
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Prime minister to deliver Future Made in Australia speech in Perth
Anthony Albanese is delivering a major speech in Perth today on the government’s Future Made in Australia plan. In an advance copy of the speech, Albanese says next week’s budget will invest in a “new era of mineral exploration”.
We will fund the first comprehensive map of what’s under Australia’s soil – and our seabed. Meaning we can pinpoint the new deposits of critical minerals and strategic materials we need for clean energy and its technology. As well as traditional minerals like iron ore and gold. And potential storage sites for hydrogen.
This landmark new funding commences on 1 July this year and it will be long term – with $566m provided over the 10-year medium term. The best time to start this generational project was a decade ago – the next best time is right now.
Albanese said Geoscience Australia would drive the work, and the “government will ensure their findings are freely available to industry”.
So companies know where to drill, dig and explore to find the mineral resources that will power our future growth and prosperity.
This is a map to greater community certainty as well. Because it will assist with infrastructure planning, environmental assessments and supporting the agriculture sector. And help create a sustainable pipeline of projects – on an orderly timeline.
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Legal appeal to repatriate children from Syria begins in federal court
Save the Children Australia is today launching an appeal in the federal court in Melbourne, seeking to compel the government to repatriate a group of Australian children and their mothers from north-east Syria.
In a statement the organisation said it is acting as a litigation guardian on behalf of 11 Australian children and their six mothers, with the appeal to be heard over two days.
During the initial hearing last September, Justice Mark Moshinsky ruled Australia does not have control of the detention of the women and children and a writ requiring the government to repatriate them should not be issued.
Save the Children says the government repatriated 13 children and four women in October 2022, and eight were repatriated by the previous government in 2019. CEO Mat Tinkler said time was running out:
These innocent Australian children have spent the past five years in desert camps with limited access to healthcare and education, and their situation grows more and more desperate every day they remain there, especially with the current instability in the Middle East …
These are Australian citizens and we know the federal government has the ability to bring these children and their mothers home in a controlled manner, where they can be safely reintegrated into the community … It should not have to take legal action, supported by a child rights charity, to force the hand of the government to adhere to its obligations.
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Coalition urges PM to speak with Xi Jinping directly regarding flare incident
On ABC Radio National just earlier, the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, responded to China’s stance on a flare incident this week – with the Australian government saying a navy helicopter was forced to take evasive action after a Chinese air force plane launched flares.
The Chinese government has responded, stating “the Australian military aircraft flew near China airspace in a threatening way.” You can read more below:
Paterson said this was “not consistent with our understanding of what happened” and told the program:
It was not only not in China’s territorial waters, it wasn’t even in China’s exclusive economic zone, and so it appears to be way out of the bounds of behaviour from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
The shadow minister argued this was a “pattern of behaviour” from China and said the government’s labelling of the flare incident as unprofessional “doesn’t cut it”.
This is far worse than unprofessional because it’s done [with] malign intent … and we shouldn’t tolerate that. We want the prime minister to raise this at the highest levels, to use what he claims to be good a relationship with Xi Jinping to make representations on behalf of our country and our service personnel.
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Australia has not made it through to Eurovision grand final
The votes have been counted and in a massive upset for Australia, it has not made it through to the Eurovision grand final.
Australia’s entrant this time, band Electric Fields, was knocked out of the running early this morning alongside Poland, Iceland, Moldova and Azerbaijan.
Electric Fields was listed as one to watch out for this year, with the two members both refugees who appeared on Australia’s X Factor. Their Eurovision song, One Milkali (One Blood), was partly sung in the First Nations language Yankunytjatjara.
You can read more about the act below:
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Coalition to wait for government’s response to proposed changes to deportation bill before deciding final position
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, just spoke with ABC Radio National about the changes the Coalition has proposed to the government’s deportation bill. My colleague Paul Karp has all the details on this below:
Paterson expressed concern that the bill would give “extraordinary powers” to the immigration minister with “very little checks and balances or oversight or restraints on those powers”.
And while sometimes powers like that can be justified by circumstances, we think it requires robust oversight and control to make sure that it’s not misused.
If the Coalition’s changes are not adopted by the government, will they vote the bill down? Paterson responded:
We proposed amendments, which we think improve the bill. The ball is in the government’s court. We’ll wait and see what they have to say before we examine our final position.
Asked if the Coalition is trying to soften the bill, Paterson said he thinks strong powers are “necessary” but “robust and appropriate oversight” is needed.
The immigration minister should have the follow-up process before making those decisions, should have criteria that he has to consider that the parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinise that decision, that there should be a time limit on a ban from these countries, and that there should be an independent statutory review. Now I think they’re all very reasonable things which still allows the government to protect the integrity of our immigration system, but doesn’t leave this kind of unfettered power in the hands of a single minister.
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Australian aid worker who fled Rafah says only way to save children is ‘immediate, definitive ceasefire’
In some international news, Israel has carried out airstrikes in eastern Rafah after issuing orders for the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from part of the city earlier on Monday, triggering an exodus of thousands of people. You can read the latest on the developing situation below:
Sacha Myers is an Australian aid worker with Save the Children, who left Rafah just days ago and is now in Egypt. In a statement, she said there were “moments of jubilation” when news of the possible ceasefire deal broke, but “as the bombing increased throughout the night, all hopes were dashed”. She said in a statement:
Having recently met children who have endured severe injuries in this war, including limbs amputated with very little pain relief, I fear for the children in Rafah who may face a similar or worse fate as we enter this new and perhaps even more deadly phase of this war. The worst-case scenario for Gaza’s children is becoming a horrifying reality. And it’s happening as the world watches. The only way to save their lives is an immediate, definitive ceasefire.
Australia has rightly called for a ceasefire and warned Israel not to go down this path but, at the same time, has not committed to banning all military exports to Israel, leaving open the risk that Australian-made weapons or parts of weapons could be used by Israeli forces to commit grave violations against children.
Guardian Australia’s Daniel Hurst has looked into claims about Australian defence exports to Israel. You can find out more below:
Treasurer flags further tax reforms in upcoming budget
Jim Chalmers was asked whether there will be more tax reform in the budget, beyond what we already know (such as the stage-three tax cuts).
He suggested there would be, and said this would aim to “incentivise the kind of investment that we want to see in the future of our economy and in the Future Made in Australia”.
We have indicated that we are prepared to use the tax system in the service of our big national economic objectives, as the budget will balance the cost of living … with our responsibilities to the future. And the tax system does have a role to play there, and there’ll be some other tax changes as well.
In all of the budgets we’ve done so far there has been modest but meaningful tax reform, and that’s because I believe in doing these things in a sequenced and orderly and methodical way and people should expect to see more of that on Tuesday.
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Chalmers on migration: ‘That’s not the only reason why we don’t have enough homes in our country’
Sticking with the federal budget for a moment, and the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has been speaking to ABC Radio National about what we can expect next week.
On housing, he was asked about comments from the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, yesterday that migration was putting pressure on the housing and rental markets.
Chalmers responded that students in particular had returned “much quicker” than expected following Covid and that has put pressure on housing, but “there are other pressures as well”.
That’s not the only reason why we don’t have enough homes in our country … The housing pipeline is not what it needs to be. That’s why we’ve got this ambitious but achievable target [to build 1.2m homes in the five years from July]. That’s why we’re already investing something like $25bn in 17 different housing policies. And that’s why housing will be a big focus and a big priority in the budget as well.
The treasurer also flagged further housing measures in the budget:
The short answer to that is yes, [housing] will be a major focus of the budget on Tuesday. We know that there’s not enough homes, we need to build much more housing in our communities and in our country. We’ve made some quite big investments already and people should expect to see more on Tuesday night.
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CFMEU welcomes funding of 15,000 fee-free construction Tafe places in budget
The CFMEU has welcomed a funding boost for apprenticeships and traineeships in the upcoming budget.
As part of a package announced today, the government will fund 15,000 fee-free construction Tafe and VET places over two years from 2025.
The CFMEU national secretary, Zach Smith, said:
This investment will mean more apprentices and trainees will get the training they need to build critical housing and infrastructure that Australia desperately needs …
There’s an often-overlooked distinction between apprenticeships and traineeships but thankfully the government recognises the importance of both – that’s critical to addressing construction skills gaps.
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More on the new report showing decline of NSW environment
The report has prompted the NSW Greens and conservation groups to call on the Minns government to act on election promises to better protect the environment and deliver its response to the Henry review of the state’s environment laws.
The Henry review, released in August last year, delivered a damning assessment of the state’s laws, finding they were unlikely to ever successfully protect nature unless they were substantially overhauled.
The Greens environment spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said the latest figures in the biodiversity outlook report were “extreme and bleak”:
If they don’t mobilise this government into real action I just don’t know what will. Half of all threatened species becoming extinct is an intolerable outcome.
Report after report has shown the terrible decline of biodiversity in NSW, and the Ken Henry review of biodiversity laws gave the government very clear recommendations on how to slow and reverse this trend, but the government still hasn’t responded after seven months.
Clancy Barnard, a spokesperson for the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the report showed the government needed to deliver on its election promises for the environment:
This report is yet more proof the government needs to act on its election commitment and stop runaway habitat clearing which is the key driver of biodiversity loss in NSW.
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Half of threatened species in NSW on course to be extinct within century, new report says
Half of the threatened plant and animal species in New South Wales are on course to be extinct within a century, according to a new report released by the Minns government, which finds the decline of the state’s environment has accelerated.
The state’s second biodiversity outlook report finds the biggest driver of the continued decline of the state’s wildlife is habitat destruction.
The report finds only 29% of the habitat in NSW has the capacity to support native species – down from 31% at the time of the first report in 2020 – and that the black summer bushfires increased the risk of extinction for many species.
Clearing of habitat increased between 2016 and 2021, a period in which native vegetation laws were relaxed by the previous Coalition government, and clearing for agriculture exceeded that caused by forestry or infrastructure construction.
The environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said the combined threats of habitat loss, climate change and invasive species had put the state’s ecosystems under serious pressure:
Worryingly, this report confirms biodiversity is in decline and getting worse.
We are committed to fixing biodiversity offsets and stopping runaway land clearing. We have adopted a whole-of-government approach to tackling climate change and we have boosted environmental protections to their strongest level yet.
There was some improvement in the report, with the amount of protected conservation land increasing from 8.6% to 11.2% of the state.
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New vaping laws needed to help young people who struggle to quit, GPs say
Continuing from our last post: the RACGP president, Nicole Higgins, said the laws were needed to help protect the young people who have found it very difficult to stop vaping once they start:
The withdrawal effects, including anxiety and trouble eating and sleeping, can be a confronting experience.
She encouraged anyone trying to quit nicotine products to book a consult with their GP, with a range of options – “including nicotine replacement therapy, behavioural support, managing withdrawal symptoms and cravings, as well as prescribing medicines to help you quit”.
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia national president, Prof Trent Twomey, said community pharmacies welcomed “this strategic alliance of frontline health professionals to prevent children from accessing vapes”.
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‘Strategic alliance’ of health bodies backs vaping reforms
The nation’s peak frontline health bodies have formed a “strategic alliance” backing the government’s vaping reforms, and are urging all federal MPs and senators to follow their lead supporting the next round of legislation now before the parliament.
The Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia are this morning gathering in Brisbane to throw their support behind the reforms ensuring vapes are available as a therapeutic good to support people to quit smoking, and not as a tool used by big tobacco to hook a new generation on nicotine.
Vaping laws came into effect in March banning the importation of vapes unless the importer has a licence and permit. The next round of reforms now before parliament would force vape stores to close by preventing the domestic manufacture, advertisement, supply and commercial possession of non-prescription vapes.
The AMA president, Steve Robson, described vaping as a “ticking timebomb” that is “threatening the health of future generations”.
Let’s be clear – children and young adults use vapes as their first nicotine-based product. They are not trying to quit, as they’ve never smoked before.
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Wong and Birmingham heading on bipartisan trip to Tuvalu
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, and her opposition counterpart, Simon Birmingham, will fly to Tuvalu today as part of a renewed bipartisan push to maintain Australia’s standing in the Pacific.
The bipartisan trip comes shortly after Tuvalu’s new government confirmed it would retain the climate and security deal with Australia that was signed last year but was placed in question after elections in late January.
Wong and Birmingham are expected to meet the prime minister, Feleti Teo, and his cabinet to discuss what both countries have described as the Falepili Union – a Tuvaluan term for neighbours who live in close houses and seen as reflecting the duty of neighbours to care for, share with and protect each other.
The climate crisis is a key item on the agenda, given that low-lying Tuvalu is especially vulnerable to sea level rise. Wong and Birmingham are due to visit a coastal adaptation project that has involved the reclamation and stabilisation of land, before returning to Australia on Thursday night.
It is the second Australian high-level bipartisan trip to the Pacific in this term of government.
Wong said the joint visit sent a signal to the Pacific “that Australia is a steadfast partner in ensuring a region that is peaceful, stable and prosperous”, while Birmingham said Australia was “stronger when we speak with one voice”.
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Good morning
And happy Wednesday – welcome back to another day on the live blog, and thanks to Martin for kicking things off for us. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll take you through our rolling coverage today.
See something that needs attention? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.
Let’s get started.
Australia teams up with UK and US against hackers
Australia has imposed a targeted financial sanction and travel ban on the Russian citizen Dmitry Khoroshev for his senior leadership role in the LockBit ransomware group.
Under Operation Cronos, the Australian Signals Directorate and federal police worked with international partners, including the UK and the US, to identify Khoroshev as part of LockBit’s senior leadership, the government said.
It described LockBit as a prolific criminal ransomware group which works to destabilise and disrupt key sectors for financial gain.
LockBit ransomware has been used against Australian, UK and US businesses, comprising 18% of total reported Australian ransomware attacks in 2022-23 and 119 reported victims in Australia.
The new sanction under the cyber sanctions framework makes it a criminal offence to provide assets to Khoroshev or to use or deal with his assets.
The deputy prime minister and minister for defence, Richard Marles, said:
We continue to see governments, critical infrastructure, businesses and households in Australia targeted by malicious cyber-actors.
Cyber sanctions are a key component of the Australian government’s work to deter cybercrime and help protect Australians by exposing the activities and identity of cybercriminals operating across jurisdictions.
Read more here:
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Australia’s military engaged in ‘provocative’ behaviour in South China Sea, Beijing says
China has accused Australia’s military of provocative and threatening behaviour after a dangerous episode in international waters.
An Australian navy Seahawk helicopter was forced to take evasive action to prevent being hit by flares launched by a J-10 Chinese air force plane on Saturday evening, according to the defence minister, Richard Marles.
The Australian government has condemned the action, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, calling it incredibly dangerous.
But China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said the military had taken the necessary steps to warn Australia.
On Tuesday he told media:
The Australian military aircraft flew near China airspace in a threatening way.
What truly happened was that an Australian military aircraft deliberately flew within close range of China’s airspace in a provocative move which endangered China’s maritime air security.
We urge Australia to stop provocations to prevent misunderstanding and miscalculation.
The appropriate diplomatic representations had been made to Beijing through all channels available to his government, including defence-to-defence, Albanese said.
Read more here:
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Welcome
Good morning and welcome to the rolling news blog. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be bringing you a few of the top overnight stories before Emily Wind comes along shortly.
An alleged leader of international ransomware group LockBit has been hit with financial sanctions and banned from travelling to Australia. The government named Dmitry Khoroshev, a Russian citizen, as having a “senior leadership role” in a criminal group that supplied a global network of hackers with the tools and infrastructure to carry out online attacks. The announcement was made overnight in coordination with authorities in the UK and the US. More coming up.
We have an exclusive story on how the Albanese government has successfully suppressed details of the effectiveness of electronic monitoring, arguing that transparency could encourage former immigration detainees to breach ankle bracelet visa conditions. On Friday the high court granted a suppression order on expert evidence relating to how ankle monitors work in a challenge of harsh new visa conditions, set to be heard as early as August.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman has accused an Australian navy helicopter of making “risky moves” after Monday’s encounter with a Chinese jet over the Yellow Sea between the Chinese and Korean coastlines. Australia has condemned China after the plane released flares in front of the helicopter. But Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman said overnight that the helicopter “endangered China’s maritime and air security”. More coming up.
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